Democratic front-runners Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York and Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois swapped tough personal barbs in South Carolina Monday night as they turn up the campaign pressure ahead of Saturday’s primary.
Clinton and Obama, along with former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards dug at one another in the unusually heated debate, targeting their opponents’ records on health care and the economy.
“While I was working on those (Chicago) streets watching those folks see their jobs shift overseas, you were a corporate lawyer sitting on the board at Wal-Mart,” Obama said to Clinton during a discussion over economic stimulus.
Clinton fired back, charging Obama with praising Republican ideas and saying, “I was fighting against those ideas when you were practicing law and representing your contributor [Tony] Rezko in his slum landlord business in inner-city Chicago,” in a reference to Obama’s ties to the indicted businessman.
Not to be ignored, Edwards, who joined Obama in attacking Clinton in earlier debates, criticized Obama’s plans for environmental reform.
“You are leaving the enforcement of environmental and labor regulations in the hands of George Bush,” Edwards said. “I wouldn’t trust George Bush to enforce anything, certainly no trade obligations.”
The debate, sponsored by CNN and the Congressional Black Caucus Institute and held on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, produced new dialogue on race. Obama was asked to respond to Nobel-prize winning author Toni Morrison’s comments that former President Bill Clinton was the country’s “first black president.”
“I would have to investigate more of Bill’s dancing ability and some of this other stuff before I accurately judged whether he was, in fact, a brother,” Obama quipped after acknowledging the former president’s “enormous affinity with the African-American community.”
Obama’s recent sparring with Bill Clinton over former president Ronald Reagan’s legacy were also brought up.
“There’s a set of assertions made by Senator Clinton, as well as her husband, that are not factually accurate,” Obama said.
“Perhaps it was inevitable that any serious challenger to the former first lady would have to take on the whole Clinton machine,” William Shapiro of Salon.com.
Obama, who faces big stakes in Saturday’s S.C. primary, was the focus of much of the debate and was often put on the defensive regarding many of his domestic policies.
“When you’re the candidate under fire, it usually means you’re ahead,” Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Domenico Montanaro of MSNBC wrote. “He consistently got caught in a debate trap by responding to every charge with an explanation. It’s a stand-up thing to do, but it ends up putting him off message. And it allows for the attack to get more air time rather than the original point or message Obama meant to be heard.”
Coming out of the debate, Edwards’ ability to stay out of the central fight caught notice.
“The reason that Clinton and Obama allowed themselves the luxury of turning the evening into a ‘this time it’s personal’ face-off was that they no longer feared losing votes to the underfunded Edwards, already badly weakened by third-place finishes in New Hampshire and Nevada,” Shapiro wrote.
The Democrats will face off one more time, on Jan. 31 in Los Angeles, before heading into the Feb. 5 “Super Tuesday” contests, when more than 20 states will vote.
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